


After So Long

by Calesvol



Category: Castlevania (Cartoon), 悪魔城ドラキュラ | Castlevania Series, 悪魔城ドラキュラ 暁月の円舞曲 と 蒼月の十字架 | Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow & Dawn of Sorrow
Genre: Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Crossing Timelines, Light Angst, Lost Love, Modern Era, Multi, Star-crossed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-09
Updated: 2018-11-09
Packaged: 2019-08-21 02:23:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16567796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Calesvol/pseuds/Calesvol
Summary: oddsandendsandeverythingbetween requested: How about a reincarnation AU where Alucard repairs the Belmont/Dracula manor and just sulks for centuries after Trevor and Sypha pass away only to have these two college punks barge into his castle one day because they dared each other to go in and see if it’s really haunted. As expected, chaos ensues





	After So Long

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Sypha and Trevor's reincarnation names are just alternate versions of their canon ones while Adrian utilizes his canon, 21st century alter ego as seen in Aria of Sorrow.

Warning(s): G, none

* * *

Syfa Velnumdes was known for a lot of things, but keeping her boyfriend, Ralph C. Belmondo, in check wasn’t one of them. University students from Bucharest like they were, of all the things they’d expected on their trip to provincial Sibiu, coming across a Gothic style castle in the countryside wasn’t one of them.

It was a thing built improbably, built upside down almost in the way it spanned and configured like a Cat’s Crade in the sky. Honestly, she and Ralph simply weren’t sure. The reason they’d come at all was his distant connection to the Belmonts that ruled the Belmont Estate still in splendid condition half an eon later. It blotted high against the lowing twilight, and the forest was devoid of birdsong usually present this time in spring. Syfa’s brows furrowed and she flashed a look towards Ralph, the brunet regarding it quizzically, inverted thing that it was.

“What do you think? Do you really think we should go in? I thought you wanted to concentrate your thesis on the Belmont Estate, Ralph,” Syfa said over her shoulder as she craned to look at him. One thing they had in common was a connection to the Belmont and Belnade Clans, something unprecedented, but very cool—she thought so, as a history major. Masters to be, at least.

Ralph stood beside her and pocketed his hands casually. “I think a better question is, why not? This castle could be important to my family’s history and we’ll never know if we don’t try. Nothing gained, nothing lost, right?”

Syfa cast a smile at him. “Oh, alright. And here I’m usually the one you have to caution against these things.” It seemed they were largely in agreement.

* * *

Genya Arikado didn’t think he would have returned all these years later. A secret agent of the Japanese government, he didn’t really have reason to be. But when his superiors had offered him the chance to pursue some black hat hacker coincidentally based in Romania that had narrowly compromised their network just a month later, he’d taken them up on it.

He walked these lonesome before, back when he’d been Adrian Tepes—and that had just been at the turn of the century some twenty years ago. The library didn’t recognize his black hair or his pressed suit, or the way he walked with a modern, catlike saunter as he stalked the halls only a practiced agent could. Genya thought he could’ve waited, he did. That his lovers and their shared family would somehow last forever until, one night it didn’t. That he received word of their demise and suddenly his grief cut sharply as stone. He’d slept until the late 1700’s he was so aggrieved, only to defeat his father again and again, and sleep again.

He wondered what his friend, Soma Cruz, would think if he knew who he really was.

But, he couldn’t exactly tell Yoko Belnades, his associate, that he was here, could he? It felt like too much of a revelation, too much of tearing off old wounds he thought had scabbed and scarred and long since healed, but just a sharp enough pinch and they could easily bleed again.

“Ralph, what are you doing? If you’re not careful something could collapse in on us!”

No…it couldn’t be, could it?

“Where’s your sense of adventure, Syfa? Besides, it’s not like this place is zoned off. Does it look like some bloody museum to you? If it’s haunted, we’ll be the first to know.”

His heart lurched. God above, it was.

Remembering a complex system of mirrors he’d set up some centuries ago, he activated one closest in the proximity of where the voices emanated and angled it just so. They were a spitting image of Trevor and Sypha, a fact that made his heart pound into his throat. Genya pinched the bridge of his nose, willing that old grief for his lovers to subside. No matter how alike they looked, he had to prevent them from finding out.

From finding him. He’d already lost more than he could handle and phantoms of the past were those he couldn’t suffer. Not anymore.

Sighing deeply, he retreated into the shadows. Hopefully, this wouldn’t take long.

* * *

“What was that?” Syfa demanded in alarm as she flashed the flashlight over what appeared to be a procession of statuesque gargoyles, their eyes glinting red whenever the light traveled directly over them.

“Your paranoia by the looks of it,” Ralph replied jokingly, only to be swatted at by Syfa who wasn’t having it. “Hey!”

Syfa dashed the flashlight to another corner. “Ralph, there it is again! I’m sure of it!”

Ralph squinted, unconvinced. “This place is old and hasn’t been touched in ages. It could just be your— What the hell was that?!” He saw it, he fucking saw it! Not only a massive streak of white but glaring red eyes to accompany it. That of a voracious, hungry predator.

Both stood in paralyzed shock as a great white wolf emerged from the shadows like the moon from cloud cover. At its shoulder it easily stood at Ralph’s height if not taller, a growing blot of terror forming in her throat. The wolf growled as it advanced upon them, stalking with such deliberation that every step back for them was two for it.

Poised on its haunches, the wolf was prepared to strike before something seemed to stop it. Syfa took a foolishly intrepid step forth, Ralph shouting at her to back away. Except, she couldn’t. It was like something kept her transfixed on the spot.

Syfa’s hand extended and tears began to form in her eyes, disarming the wolf whose snarl fell and its shock registered in the whites of its eyes, too. “Why do I feel like I know you? Why does my heart ache to look at you?” she thought aloud, the wolf’s defensive stance seeming to dissolve away like their fear. She was almost poised to touch its snout before Ralph seized her hand.

“Syfa, we have to leave, now!”

“Huh?” was all she could muster as Ralph led them in a headlong dash down through the grand foyer and out the entrance, through the dismal night that swallowed them up again. Ralph never looked back while Syfa kept throwing looks over her shoulder at the wolf.

“Ralph, did I just imagine that?” she asked him once they were safely away and deep in the woods, on the hiker’s trail, in stunned silence moments later.

The brunet looked troubled, eyebrows furrowing. “No, you didn’t. It was like the wolf was familiar, somehow. Did you feel it? Grief instead of fear?”

“Yeah, but I don’t understand. I’ve never been here in my life.”

“Neither have I,” Ralph agreed, folding his arms at the looming shadow.

“…Let’s get back to the hotel. I don’t want to be out here any longer than we have to be.”

“Agreed. Strangely familiar wolves, included.”


End file.
